The Trump administration has adopted a of separating undocumented families who are intercepted trying to cross the border, meaning thousands of terrified small children are now, in effect, wards of the U.S. government. In March, the Trump administration was reportedly the possibility of housing the children at military bases. Now, McClatchy Tuesday, the Trump White House is progressing with that plan and is looking to build tent cities at military bases to alleviate the strain on Department of Health and Human Services shelters which are now at 95 percent of capacity, home to 10,0000 children.

From McClatchy:

The Department of Health and Human Services will visit Fort Bliss, a sprawling Army base near El Paso in the coming weeks to look at a parcel of land where the administration is considering building a tent city to hold between 1,000 and 5,000 children, according to U.S. officials and other sources familiar with the plans. HHS officials confirmed that they’re looking at the Fort Bliss site along with Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene and Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo for potential use as temporary shelters.

The number of migrant children that have been separated from their parents and held in government custody has increased 20 percent under the leadership of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

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The Trump administration is reportedly looking to house thousands of migrant children in “tent cities” at military outposts across Texas.

The Department of Health and Human Services will conduct a visit at Fort Bliss near El Paso to inspect a parcel of land where the administration is looking to house 1,000 to 5,000 unaccompanied children, .

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HHS’ Administration for Children & Families confirmed to The Post that Fort Bliss is being evaluated for potential use as a temporary shelter.

Other military venues being looked at are Dyess Air Force Base in Taylor County and Goodfellow Air Force Base near San Angelo.

The development comes as shelters for children are reaching capacity following Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ “zero tolerance” policy that .

More than 10,000 migrant children are being held at HHS shelters, which are now 95 percent full, according to McClatchy.

The massive surge of immigrants fleeing violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala began in 2014.

The Obama administration also detained children but some were released to family.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein defended the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy by claiming that when children are released to family members they don’t come back for immigration proceedings.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post.

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...well the Nazi allegories about Trump aren't getting far off anymore...and this is after cozying up to a guy who has his own concentration camps...

He's such a callous twat he thinks separating parents from their young children, then housing them in horrid conditions is the best way to curtail illegal immigration? What a heartless, despicable ass.

Especially on kids....even George W Bush and previous Republican presidents would not dream to do that on minors.

Hell, George W Bush was the one who pushed to treat minor illegal immigrants as refugees or protected guests with the right to appear before a judge in the deportation methods in his term.

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Sessions and Trump have been gleefully defending the separation of undocumented immigrant children from their parents. The two fuckers have literally gone full Nazi.

A group of lawmakers and public officials in Washington state denounced the Trump administration Saturday for a policy that is resulting in the separation of undocumented immigrant families at the Mexican border, accusing the administration of causing undue trauma to children and parents who might be legally seeking asylum in the United States.

Although Seattle is some 1,500 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the debate over family separations hit closer to home for the Evergreen State after dozens of undocumented immigrants were transferred last week to the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac, near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Nearly all of those migrants — 174 out of 206 — were women, said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who spent about three hours Saturday morning meeting with the recently moved detainees at the SeaTac facility.

Most of them were from Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, she said, but there were also people from as far away as Eritrea. Many spoke of fleeing threats of rape, gang violence and political persecution, Jayapal said.

The women were in three separate concrete pods when she visited, and Jayapal said she and an interpreter first asked them to respond to questions by raising their hands. She asked how many were mothers who had been forcibly separated from their children: More than half of the women raised their hands. Some said that their children had been as young as 12 months — and many no longer knew where their children were being held.

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“It was absolutely heartbreaking. And I’ve been doing immigration-rights work for almost two decades. I am not new to these stories,” Jayapal told The Washington Post on Sunday. “I will tell you there was not a dry eye in the house. … Some of them heard their children screaming for them in the next room. Not a single one of them had been allowed to say goodbye or explain to them what was happening.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement “due to the current surge in illegal border crossings and implementation of the U.S. Department of Justice’s zero-tolerance policy.” Previously, ICE has held detainees in county jails or in privately contracted facilities.

Jayapal said detainees relayed disturbing accounts of being held at Border Patrol facilities in “inhumane fenced cages” (referred to as the “dog pound”) or in the “ice box,” so nicknamed for the facilities’ cold temperatures and lack of blankets or sleeping mats. She also said many women spoke of being deprived of clean water and experiencing verbal abuse while in Border Patrol custody.

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“Just the abuse that they endured, being called filthy and stinky and being mocked for crying,” Jayapal told The Post. “One woman said ‘I want to be with my children’ and the Border Patrol agent said: ‘You will never see your children again. Families don’t exist here. You won’t have a family anymore.’ ”

The Department of Homeland Security disputes that detainees are held in “cages,” pointing to a that characterizes them as “ ” or “barriers,” as a Trump administration official referred to them.

On Saturday afternoon, Jayapal issued a withering statement describing her visit — “The mothers could not stop crying when they spoke about their children,” she wrote — and called for the Trump administration to reunite the detained and separated families.

“We have always had problems with the criminalization of immigrants,” Jayapal said in a video posted to her social media accounts Saturday. “But this is a new low, to take folks who are asylum seekers and throw them into a facility, not provide them with any access to basic human rights and, worst of all, to separate mothers from their children.”

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Trump blames family separation at the border on Democrats
President Trump said he hates his administration's policy of separating undocumented children and parents when they enter the U.S., and blamed Democrats for it. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

On Saturday, Jayapal and others gathered in front of the detention center to denounce the practice of separating children that had produced the “heartbreaking” stories they said they had heard inside. They spoke over the din of protesters demanding that arriving migrants should be allowed by law to seek asylum.

“We’ve gathered here to say one central message: Cruelty to children should not be part of American policy,” Gov. Jay Inslee (D) told the crowd. “Intentional infliction of injury to children is below the standards of America. In America, the willful infliction of trauma against children is not acceptable. America is better than this. Inhumane, callous indifference and willful injury to children must stop.”

In recent weeks, outrage over the treatment of children taken into U.S. custody at the southwestern border has reached a fever pitch. President Trump has for the “horrible law” that is causing family separations, but in reality, no such law exists. His administration, however, announced a “zero tolerance” policy in early May under which the Justice Department has tried to prosecute every person who crosses the southwestern border illegally, even if some of them could or should be treated as asylum seekers, .

Speaking to last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended the policy and its result: children being taken from their parents at the border.

“If people don’t want to be separated from their children, they should not bring them with them,” Sessions told Hewitt. “We’ve got to get this message out. You’re not given immunity.”

On Saturday, Washington state’s attorney general, Bob Ferguson, who was also at the rally, did not mince words when reacting to the policy. He explained that he was the father of 10-year-old twins.

“It’s outrageous,” Ferguson told the crowd. “Frankly, I’m not sure how Attorney General Sessions sleeps at night with a policy like this.”

Ferguson said Washington state officials were looking into whether they had grounds to sue the federal government to halt the family separations. Last Thursday, he and Inslee sent a letter to several top immigration officials — including acting U.S. attorney Annette Hayes — demanding answers to questions about the women seeking asylum who were being transferred to the detention center in SeaTac.

“Where are their children and who is caring for them?” the letter asked. “Why are these women being held in prison while their asylum claims are resolved?”

On Saturday, Inslee told the crowd that separating families was “un-American,” and that the infliction of trauma on immigrant children was intentional and not an accident.

“Today we are here not just to protect children but to protect our basic character as Americans,” Inslee said. “Any parent, any grandparent — anyone with a drop of blood in their heart — can understand the anxiety and the fear and the trauma caused by dislocation from your parents, particularly those children who have frequently had to suffer violence that is the very reason for their seeking amnesty.”

CLARIFICATION: A previous version of this article said the Trump administration had a policy of separating immigrant families at the border. The Department of Homeland Security said it does not have an explicit policy to separate families but that it is, however, “increasing referrals of illegal border crossers from DHS to [the Justice Department] for prosecution.” That has resulted in an increase in families being separated at the border as parents are detained. This article has been updated.

He's such a callous twat he thinks separating parents from their young children, then housing them in horrid conditions is the best way to curtail illegal immigration? What a heartless, despicable ass.

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They aren't 'refugee camps', that would be a compassionate attempt to find them temporary housing. They are concentration camps, plain and simple.

Someone needs to call America out on this, we’re the supposed leaders of the free world but actively participating in barbaric practices like this.

What does anyone gain from separating children from their parents and what exactly is President Cheeto going to do with these children??

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In my darkest fears for them, the Thirteenth Amendment:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

But I pray it never gets to that point. There'd be no redemption left for Republicans if they allow things to get to this point.

That probably comes later, potentially before the Republicans declare war on Mexico because they refuse to build the wall one too many times.

Before yesterday, my worry was that Trump would trigger World War III with North Korea. Now, horrifyingly, I'm worried he'll declare it against America's allies.

Exactly, but the Republicans will let him do it anyway because, in this administration, "anything Trump says or does is considered constitutional."

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Nah come on American companies need cheap "slave" or "indentured" labor...it be waste to shoot all those Mexicans. Put them to work in jobs "Real" Americans won't do...like cleaning floors, farming, etc. Sweat shops to make microchips and shit if we do start tariffs on everyone.

“If people don’t want to be separated from their children, they should not bring them with them,” Sessions told Hewitt. “We’ve got to get this message out. You’re not given immunity.”

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The words "cruel and unusual punishments" come to mind.

Sessions really is a nasty piece of work. I'm not sure if he believes everything that he's saying, or if he's just determined that "tough on crime" was the best strategy for his career. Either way, he's bringing the US close to a repressive state.